HydrogenAudio

Lossless Audio Compression => Lossless / Other Codecs => Topic started by: Gregory.Opera on 2012-08-08 13:16:08

Title: Ripping to HD-AAC?
Post by: Gregory.Opera on 2012-08-08 13:16:08
Pretty self-explanatory - how do I rip CDs into the new "HD-AAC (http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/amm/produkte/audiocodec/audiocodecs/hdaac/)" format that the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits ("Fraunhofer") announced a while back (http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/amm/produkte/audiocodec/audiocodecs/hdaac/)?

According to Fraunhofer, HD-AAC offers better-quality than CDs, in smaller file sizes... I currently maintain a massive (by consumer standards) music collection in 320kbs, however due to storage limitations, we're about to buy a second NAS (network attached atorage) server with lots and lots of storage that will be used exclusively for music (the current NAS server shares all our data) and I want to re-rip all of my CDs into something much better quality.

Extensive research has shown that in theory, HD-AAC is the best choice because it is backwards-compatible with AAC and natively supports full metadata - I was considering FLAC a while back, but I had a few problems with the metadata and album artwork...

Anyway, I seem to be turning a simple question into an essay, so I'll leave it at that - how do I rip CDs into HD-AAC?
Title: Ripping to HD-AAC?
Post by: pdq on 2012-08-08 13:34:32
There is no lossy format that offers "much better quality" than 320 kbps. Try instead to solve your issues with FLAC, or choose a different lossless format.
Title: Ripping to HD-AAC?
Post by: skamp on 2012-08-08 14:03:44
My understanding is that HD-AAC is hybrid lossless/lossy. The "better than CD" quality claim is related to support for 24 bit / 192 kHz sampling, but that won't improve quality when ripping CDs, the ripped files will remain 16 bit / 44.1 kHz. The advantage over FLAC (if I got this right) is that AAC-aware players will be able to play the lossy part even if they don't support HD-AAC.

In order to rip to HD-AAC, you need to find a command-line encoder (do they sell one?) and set up a custom command line in the "encoder" field of your ripper of choice (EAC or whatever).

What problems were you having with FLAC?